The New News
Apartment
In mid-April, my old roommate found out she had to go back to the States the next week for a job interview and didn’t want to pay to keep the place while she was gone; I wasn’t allowed to stay by the landlord because I didn’t have two others to live in that house with me and the single rooms in the compound were already full. Translated into me moving into the small room in Jane’s apartment, a savings of 50%, and a renewed appreciation for indoor plumbing.
For my first 12 days, we had water flowing from the tap for about 12 hours. You have to climb a spiral staircase—it’s painted yellow—to get to our second story apartment. Kofi, a 10- or 12-year-old neighbor boy, reportedly carried a big bucket full of water up the stairs on his head. All for the price of about 50 cents. It’s not that we’re lazy, exactly. But it’s better to give him a job than charity (see Jane’s blog).
The day that the water came back for good (there were a couple of false alarms), the power went out. If forced to choose, I prefer having no water to having no electricity.
My backyard is a bar, which is really only an issue on Thursday, their big night. But we can get in without paying cover, at least, and mingle with the Rastas and obrunis regulars. The other nights aren’t so loud.
I said I’d blog Friday, but it was one of those kind of days. The nearest internet café had power, but the link was down. The other one close by was affected by the same power outage we had at home. It poured for about 30 minutes in the early afternoon, then drizzled; my first Rainy Season Rain. I had to taxi it over to the third internet place, much further from home. They have free wireless at their restaurant, but it’s made Jane sick twice so only bottled beverages for me, thanks! The connection was so slow I accomplished next to nothing. Back home and still no power. As the room slowly darkened, Jane, Manon and I all feel asleep in our lime-green living room, but then individually relocated to our own beds because we were cold. I love the rainy season!
Job
I am now Project Coordinator for Orphanage Africa.
(from the website): OA is a non-profit, non-governmental organisation that aims to support and create self-sufficient, sustainable orphanages in Ghana, Africa, through programmes in sustainable education, technology, farming and general healthcare. OA is bringing hope to children and adolescents that have found themselves, through no fault of their own, in borderline situations. Like millions of others across Africa, they are living in orphanages with little hope for the future…OA aims to ensure education, nutrition, hygiene and health care in orphanages in Ghana using ecologically viable and sustainable techniques: we help them help themselves!
Initially OA developed projects to help make orphanages self-sufficient by individually analysing their acute problems. We designed programmes that focus on permaculture, education, farming, animal farms, healthcare and basic infrastructure. Over time however, OA has drastically extended its approach to encompass the greater community by implementing community outreach programmes such as Well Women’s Centres, HIV prevention, a therapeutic feeding centre, sponsoring extreme medical cases or funding education for 520 children in the community. We believe that by helping families and strengthening the community, we ensure that they can care and provide for their children so that there will be less abandoned or orphaned children in the future. In addition to assisting Ghanaian Orphanages, we also run our own OA Orphanage, specializing in babies and children with acute health problems, HIV/AIDS, or young adults rejected by other orphanages.
My job is basically to coordinate communication between the Europe offices and the departments here while the President/Founder is away to fundraise this summer. One of my biggest jobs is to make what happens here in Ghana real to the donors in Europe by collecting testimonials, pictures, drawings, etc. It means I get to be creative and journalistic-y! I’ll get to travel around to the different orphanages, go on outreach talks, visit the construction site for the new orphanage, etc. The main orphanage is in Ampomah Village, which is about an hour and a half commute by tro-tro from my current apartment. But I only have to go twice a week and will most likely go Tuesdays, spend the night there in the volunteers house, and come back Wednesday afternoon to cut down on the transportation. But I tro-tro’ed it there 3 times last week and it was pretty bearable. I’m becoming quite an expert.
[I’ve realized I’ve come a long way since Egypt—where I never took the tro-tro equivalent. And from Malaysia—where I could barely stand to have a shower without hot water.]
My initial contract is for three months, with the possibility of extending it in August, should I want to. I really like the philosophy of the organization, particularly its holistic approach and outreach programs. In order to stay though, I already know that I’d need a salary increase, since mine currently isn’t enough to cover expenses. I’m supplementing with tutoring jobs with American kids.
In mid-April, my old roommate found out she had to go back to the States the next week for a job interview and didn’t want to pay to keep the place while she was gone; I wasn’t allowed to stay by the landlord because I didn’t have two others to live in that house with me and the single rooms in the compound were already full. Translated into me moving into the small room in Jane’s apartment, a savings of 50%, and a renewed appreciation for indoor plumbing.
For my first 12 days, we had water flowing from the tap for about 12 hours. You have to climb a spiral staircase—it’s painted yellow—to get to our second story apartment. Kofi, a 10- or 12-year-old neighbor boy, reportedly carried a big bucket full of water up the stairs on his head. All for the price of about 50 cents. It’s not that we’re lazy, exactly. But it’s better to give him a job than charity (see Jane’s blog).
The day that the water came back for good (there were a couple of false alarms), the power went out. If forced to choose, I prefer having no water to having no electricity.
My backyard is a bar, which is really only an issue on Thursday, their big night. But we can get in without paying cover, at least, and mingle with the Rastas and obrunis regulars. The other nights aren’t so loud.
I said I’d blog Friday, but it was one of those kind of days. The nearest internet café had power, but the link was down. The other one close by was affected by the same power outage we had at home. It poured for about 30 minutes in the early afternoon, then drizzled; my first Rainy Season Rain. I had to taxi it over to the third internet place, much further from home. They have free wireless at their restaurant, but it’s made Jane sick twice so only bottled beverages for me, thanks! The connection was so slow I accomplished next to nothing. Back home and still no power. As the room slowly darkened, Jane, Manon and I all feel asleep in our lime-green living room, but then individually relocated to our own beds because we were cold. I love the rainy season!
Job
I am now Project Coordinator for Orphanage Africa.
(from the website): OA is a non-profit, non-governmental organisation that aims to support and create self-sufficient, sustainable orphanages in Ghana, Africa, through programmes in sustainable education, technology, farming and general healthcare. OA is bringing hope to children and adolescents that have found themselves, through no fault of their own, in borderline situations. Like millions of others across Africa, they are living in orphanages with little hope for the future…OA aims to ensure education, nutrition, hygiene and health care in orphanages in Ghana using ecologically viable and sustainable techniques: we help them help themselves!
Initially OA developed projects to help make orphanages self-sufficient by individually analysing their acute problems. We designed programmes that focus on permaculture, education, farming, animal farms, healthcare and basic infrastructure. Over time however, OA has drastically extended its approach to encompass the greater community by implementing community outreach programmes such as Well Women’s Centres, HIV prevention, a therapeutic feeding centre, sponsoring extreme medical cases or funding education for 520 children in the community. We believe that by helping families and strengthening the community, we ensure that they can care and provide for their children so that there will be less abandoned or orphaned children in the future. In addition to assisting Ghanaian Orphanages, we also run our own OA Orphanage, specializing in babies and children with acute health problems, HIV/AIDS, or young adults rejected by other orphanages.
My job is basically to coordinate communication between the Europe offices and the departments here while the President/Founder is away to fundraise this summer. One of my biggest jobs is to make what happens here in Ghana real to the donors in Europe by collecting testimonials, pictures, drawings, etc. It means I get to be creative and journalistic-y! I’ll get to travel around to the different orphanages, go on outreach talks, visit the construction site for the new orphanage, etc. The main orphanage is in Ampomah Village, which is about an hour and a half commute by tro-tro from my current apartment. But I only have to go twice a week and will most likely go Tuesdays, spend the night there in the volunteers house, and come back Wednesday afternoon to cut down on the transportation. But I tro-tro’ed it there 3 times last week and it was pretty bearable. I’m becoming quite an expert.
[I’ve realized I’ve come a long way since Egypt—where I never took the tro-tro equivalent. And from Malaysia—where I could barely stand to have a shower without hot water.]
My initial contract is for three months, with the possibility of extending it in August, should I want to. I really like the philosophy of the organization, particularly its holistic approach and outreach programs. In order to stay though, I already know that I’d need a salary increase, since mine currently isn’t enough to cover expenses. I’m supplementing with tutoring jobs with American kids.
posted by Jill at 11:35 AM
4 Comments:
Hello
Congrats on the job. The job description is interesting. I would love to do that kind of thing. You have your input as an individual an you are helping these people.
About the electricity versus water shortage. I am the opposite of you. I have experienced both and I always thought I would rather the electricity goes off rather than the water.
Hello
Congrats on the job. The job description is interesting. I would love to do that kind of thing. You have your input as an individual an you are helping these people.
About the electricity versus water shortage. I am the opposite of you. I have experienced both and I always thought I would rather the electricity goes out rather than the water.
re: oafrica.org, have you considered integrating a blog into the site (aka news) that people like me can syndicate - nerd alert!
shows that you're savvy with tech culture too.
p.s. I see you have a 'news' section on the site already - I wonder how easy it is to administer?
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